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“I do not only date intense blonde women, Cole,” Miriam protested.

“No, sometimes you date intense blond nonbinary people, and there was that very ill-advised poli-sci dude in junior year,” Cole said, counting on his fingers teasingly.

Miriam rolled her eyes, mostly because he was right. Especially about that poli-sci dude.

“She’s handsome, and she listens, and I think I’ve been sleeping on brunettes,” she admitted. “She’s so much better than my regular type.” She chewed the skin on the side of her nail. “She’s so good with her hands. And so…voluptuous.” She was afraid her eyes had turned into cartoon hearts.

Noelle had faced her own grief and her demons, walked through all of her personal hells to the other side. She was so brave, and competent, and—this shouldn’t be such a sexy quality but somehow it was—stalwart. She loved Carrigan’s as much as Miriam did and understood Miriam’s ideas for it. She felt like she’d found someone who spoke a language she thought she’d dreamed.

“Well,” he said thoughtfully, “I like her a lot. What’s the sitch? Are you making out?”

Miriam hugged her pillow in front of her. “We baked rugelach at three a.m. There were several Significant Looks, but no smooches.”

“What’s the holdup?” he asked. “Are you worried you’ll break up and your new life will suddenly be very uncomfortable? Hard to hide from a breakup if you live in a hotel with your ex.”

“She doesn’t date,” Miriam said, “and I need to not date, probably. Plus she scares me. I don’t think she wants to be all in, and that would be my only setting with her. If I put a toe in, I’m going to fall hard.”

“Are you not going to hook up, then?” Cole asked, his face skeptical.

“That’s what we agreed to. I’m not sure how long it will last.” Miriam scrunched up her nose. She knew she should want to wait before starting a new relationship, instead of throwing herself in the deep end, but her hormones felt otherwise, as did the butterflies in her stomach.

“You’ll be making out in a week,” Cole predicted.

Miriam stuck out her tongue. “Thank you for your faith in my willpower. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Ziva’s here,” Mr. Matthews grumbled as he passed through the breakfast room.

“Your mom’s here,” Noelle warned, as she came in to get coffee.

By the time Hannah texted her to say, “FYI your mom’s outside,” Miriam knew she should probably go find her.

Ziva was standing on the front lawn in the freezing wind when Miriam trudged outside, her long coat whipping around her, looking very much like Cathy waiting for Heathcliff on the moors.

Miriam was equally amused and annoyed. “Mom, are you out here waiting for someone to come ask you what the matter is? You know you can brood attractively inside next to the fire, right?”

“But darling, it would be so much less elegant,” Ziva said wryly. “I bought this coat just to look melodramatic. I haven’t gotten my money’s worth, yet.”

“You can drop the mask, Mom. It’s only me. I know you, remember?”

Miriam watched her mother’s face change, rearranging all her features into something wholly different, and much more exhausted.

Miriam continued. “What are you doing out here, anyway?” Or at Carrigan’s, for that matter. She was probably here to berate Miriam about ending her engagement, which would be a fun conversation.

“I was just hurting. Just out here letting the cold make me feel something,” Ziva said. “I wonder, if I hadn’t kept you from Cass, if you would have made this terribly foolish choice, now. Also, I heard the aurora borealis might be out tonight. I’ve never seen it. I thought if it appeared, I might…I don’t know, get answers to what I should do with my life.” She laughed at herself a little.

Miriam rolled her eyes, frustrated by her mother’s ability to center herself in Miriam’s life and make Miriam want to comfort her over how bad she felt about being a shitty mom. “You don’t get to have my estrangement from Carrigan’s to add to your treasure chest of martyrdom, Mom. Or my decision to stay. Feel sorry for yourself about all of the years of my childhood, if you need to, but you can’t have my choices now.”

Ziva stiffened. “I spent all of your childhood keeping you safe!”

The grief and cold finally broke down Miriam’s last filters. “You let him do it!” she cried. “You let him do all of it.”

“You think I let him?” Ziva sounded genuinely shocked.

“You control every tiny aspect of your whole life. Yes. I think you let him.” Miriam had tried for years to find ways to excuse her mother, but shewasangry at her, and shedidbelieve Ziva had chosen. And she wouldn’t keep pretending otherwise. “And I know for certain that you stayed after. You stayed all those years, through everything.” This, her mother could not refute.

Ziva hugged her coat closer. “I guess I’m flattered my illusion of control is so good that even my own daughter hasn’t seen through it. You’re right that I didn’t leave your dad. When you were little, I thought he would make it worse if we left, and when you were older, I didn’t want anyone to know I’d made a mistake. It’s hard to leave, when you don’t have anything left of yourself to go toward.”

Miriam shivered. This was the first time she’d ever heard her mom talk so honestly about her marriage. It was the first time she’d ever told her mom what she thought of her choices or even directly addressed her dad’s behavior in a conversation.